The Nation Newspaper

Tag: Bamanga Tukur

  • Jonathan and the sisters of good luck

    Beyond the flood of interpretations that greeted the eventual fall of former Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) chairman, Bamanga Tukur, there is a possibly overlooked dimension to his forced resignation after a long-drawn-out battle with antagonistic forces within the party. It is instructive that President Goodluck Jonathan apparently finally sacrificed Tukur when it came to choosing between protecting him and retaining control of the party to reinforce a possible desire for re-election in 2015.

    Jonathan, ironically, identified the man Tukur as an obstacle, despite his unapologetic support of the presidential agenda; perhaps helping to put in clearer perspective just how dispensable the president regards masculine figures, especially those in the power loop.

    With women, however, the picture of the president is that of an accommodating gentleman; or a man who appears to be gentle. It is generally believed that Jonathan would probably do anything to satisfy his beloved wife, First Lady Dame Patience, particularly considering his demonstration of enmity towards the perceived enemies of his better half, represented in recent times by the embattled Rivers State Governor Rotimi Amaechi.

    Speaking of Jonathan’s tender treatment of females, three other prominent feminine figures, in particular, come to mind; specifically, Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister for the Economy, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Minister of Petroleum Resources, Diezani Alison-Madueke, and Minister of Aviation, Stella Oduah. Perhaps never in the country’s political history have women been the custodians of so much power, and controversially too.

    While Okonjo-Iweala continues to attract loud criticism for alleged ineffectiveness, Alison-Madueke for alleged imperiousness and Oduah for alleged impropriety, Jonathan has interestingly carried on as if nothing is amiss. Notably, they have something in common: strident calls for their removal. Oduah’s case is especially reflective of Jonathan’s soft spot for the opposite sex, with the presidency treating her with kid’s gloves, in spite of weighty charges of misconduct relating to the scandalous purchase of two armoured cars for N255 million.

    Indeed, it is food for thought that Jonathan apparently does not consider the public outcry against these women, or outrage in the Oduah matter, sufficiently threatening to his administration, which contrasts with the treatment that Tukur received at his hands. This double standard approach, not to call it mentality, does not speak well of Jonathan’s sense of fairness, does it?

    While it may not be so obvious what charms the women possess that make it tough for Jonathan to treat them as expendable objects, there can be no doubt that there is more to their survival than meets the eye. Unlike the Tukur affair, Jonathan evidently does not feel any embarrassment in the company of the trio. The phrase “sacred cow” seems to find clear expression here.

    Jonathan’s gender politics, for that is what it looks like, has the appeal of ugliness; and it is possible to speculate about feelings in the corridors of power, where the circle must know that the overall boss would rather keep the strong women than the weak men, which may not necessarily be a matter of perception. These three sisters of good luck must be the envy of many.

  • Jonathan appoints Tukur NRC Chairman

    Jonathan appoints Tukur NRC Chairman

    President Goodluck Jonathan has appointed former Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Chairman Bamanga Tukur as the chairman of the Nigerian Railway Corporation (NRC).

    In a two-paragraph statement, the Special Assistant (Media) to the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Sam Nwaobasi, said the appointment is with immediate effect.

    The statement reads: “President Goodluck Jonathan has approved the appointment of Alhaji Bamanga Tukur as chairman, Nigerian Railway Corporation.

    “ And Dr. Ghaji Ismaila Bello as director-general, National Population Commission, with effect from January 8.”

     

  • Tukur as sacrificial lamb

    Tukur as sacrificial lamb

    In the last few months, the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, has been engulfed in crises. Every other day, new dimensions are added to the roiling crises. Most of the issues involved borders on contest of supremacy and arbitrary use of power through which many party faithful have either been emasculated or pushed to the back burner of party affairs. In such a dire situation, it is only natural that the bubble will soon burst.

    When the bubble finally burst last week, the lone casualty was Bamanga Tukur, the erstwhile chairman of the party. But he did not go down without a fight. He fought frantically to secure his position but he was overwhelmed by the array of opposition mounted against his person and his office. The President, Goodluck Jonathan, and his henchmen tried as much to shield him and ward off attacks against him, but at the end of the day, the President capitulated when he realised that it was better to sacrifice him and keep the fractured party together.

    Since Tukur took over the reign of leadership of the party in March 2012, the party has been mired in scheming and internecine war. It started like a fratricidal war among key chieftains of the party, especially the aggrieved governors, many members of the National Executive Committee, and National Working Committee, as well as some members of the Board of Trustees. For the 22 months of his turbulent reign as chairman, Tukur was perpetually placed on his toes as the groups perfected their strategy to unseat him.

    Trouble started for Tukur when the disgruntled groups within the party started clamouring for reforms in the party. The struggle for reform later snowballed into a major conflagration last August, when some party leaders, led by some state governors, staged a walkout from the party’s national convention ground in Abuja. Not only have the various reconciliation meetings even with the President in attendance failed to yield any fruitful result, there appears to be the presence of a certain clique within the party that is opposed to any form of reconciliation with aggrieved members. The reason for this is the fear that such reconciliation may pose a threat to their present comfort zone in the party. Therefore, they are hell-bent on maintaining the status quo.

    Now that the fate of Tukur as national chairman has been decided, there are other major issues involved in the simmering crises confronting the party, and several meetings, which attempted to resolve the knotty issues, have yielded no tangible result. Two of the issues are Jonathan’s candidature in the 2015 election and the control of party machinery in the states.  Going by the body language of the party’s hierarchy, the issue of Jonathan’s candidature in the 2015 election appears to be a no-go area. In order to consolidate the hawks’ hold on the party machinery, Tukur became a willing puppet that was used to perpetrate illegality and arbitrariness in the states’ party executives.

    One of the problems created for the PDP under the chairmanship of Tukur was that his leadership was particularly divisive. An example was the unilateral dissolution of the executive of the Adamawa State chapter of the party loyal to Murtala Nyako, the governor of the state which was achieved through the courts. The appointment of a new one was strongly suspected as a clear move to cripple the governor’s influence in the party and the state. In the wake of the dissolution, Tukur’s opponents had alleged that his decision to sack the Adamawa PDP executive was motivated by a selfish desire to pave the way for Mahmud Tukur, his son, who is currently on trial over his involvement in oil subsidy scandal, to become the next PDP governor of Adamawa State.

    Similarly, the executive of the party in Rivers State was wrestled from the hands of Rotimi Amaechi, the state governor, through the instrumentality of a court order and replaced by a team loyal to Jonathan and Nyesom Wike, the supervising Minister of Education. Ever since, both Rivers State and Amaechi, have known no peace as Wike has become a willing tool in the orchestrated campaign against the governor.

    In the case of the South-west, the situation is more pathetic as Tukur’s arm-twisting led to the installation of some largely unwanted leaders whose credibility has been severally called to question as interim managers of the South-west zone of the party. The takeover of the South-west machinery of the party by Tukur’s men was well planned and skillfully executed like a civilian equivalent of a military coup d’état. In early February 2013, agents of Tukur cleverly lured chieftains of the party from the South-west into Abuja for a meeting. Though the ‘family meeting’ was cloaked in the façade of a reconciliation gambit, those at the meeting were dumbfounded when they discovered that they had voluntarily walked into a booby trap set for them by Tukur and his clique. In one fell swoop, all the contending groups in South-west PDP were all deposited inside the trash can. The only man left standing was Buruji Kashamu, who, apparently, had a fore-knowledge of the tsunami that was about to happen.

    A few days to the Abuja parley, Tukur, through a top legal practitioner based in Abuja, went round the courts and withdrew all the pending cases instituted against the PDP by some of the groups jostling for control of the party machinery in the zone. The dummy that was sold was that the withdrawal of all the court cases would pave the way for genuine reconciliation. But this was not to be. As soon as the cases were withdrawn, the leadership of the zone was ceded to Buruji and his group. That was how the other contending groups were led to the slaughter slab. With power now fully in Buruji’s kitty, the businessman turned politician has been calling the shot with the tacit support of the party’s National Headquarters.

    That was not all. On Wednesday, November 6, 2013, a Court of Appeal sitting in Abuja reinstated Olagunsoye Oyinlola as the national secretary of the PDP. The three-man panel, chaired by Justice Amiru Sanusi, upturned the January 11 judgment of the Federal High Court, Abuja, which sacked Oyinlola. One would have thought that this judgement would provide a good opportunity for the party to resolve the intractable crisis that had enveloped it, but rather than find a solution, some desperate elements within the party, led by Tukur, went ahead to suspend Oyinlola and others under puerile excuses.

    The Presidency then came under heat from some stakeholders who felt that certain forces were exploiting the situation for their selfish motives. Some governors loyal to the President were also said to have made contacts among themselves and with the President to express deep concerns that the leadership of the party scuttled the opportunity for peace presented by the Appeal Court verdict. This is why Tukur may have incurred the wrath of Jonathan over his handling of the moves to resolve the crisis in the party.  Since then, Tukur’s days were numbered as the President was said to be unhappy with the unilateral decision he took to suspend the party leaders, including Oyinlola, who have been reinstated to his post by the appellate court. It was clear that instead of the party creating and getting more followers and friends, the hierarchy was busy creating more enemies for the party and the Jonathan administration.

    With the exit of the erstwhile chairman who is an ally of the President, the battle this time around, will shift to the agitation by certain elements within the PDP that Jonathan should not contest the 2015 election. But that would be against the President’s right to vote and be voted for as enshrined in the 1999 Constitution. Tukur’s tenure was characterised by intrigues and intra-party squabbles which resulted into mass exodus of prominent party leaders, five state governors, members of the National Working Committee and lawmakers in the National Assembly. Perhaps, only the President, for whom he was a cheerleader, will, most certainly, miss him.

  • Puppet quits, puppeteer remains

    Puppet quits, puppeteer remains

    Puppet quits, puppeteer remains. Open sesame: Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) problems vanish? Not by any chance!

    Alhaji Bamanga Tukur, vanquished PDP national chairman, may be the ultimate fall guy in the 2015 presidential chess game. He has been sacrificed as any pun would.

    But the game is far from over, for the puppeteer is still alive and well; and ready to tangle! So are his opponents: flush with Tukur’s unceremonious junking!

    Still, you’ve got to feel for Alhaji Bamanga, the way he seems to make a hash of things. Sure, the cards are almost always stacked against him. But his Achilles’ heel would appear his political antenna, too blunt to pick up danger, even if his nose is on fire!

    As 2nd Republic governor of defunct Gongola State (1 October – 31 December 1983), his three-month gubernatorial reign came with the ruling National Party of Nigeria (NPN)-confected electoral landslide, moon-slide, and space-slide, that left everybody, victor and vanquished, numb.

    Sure, his political amorality of, in months, transiting from the boss at Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) — almost always the electoral cash cow of Nigeria’s federal ruling parties — to a winning opposition candidate in Gongola (now Adamawa and Taraba states), did not help.

    Yet, perhaps only the likes of Tukur believed the house of fraud the NPN built was not about to crash. He would therefore go ahead, pretending to play “His Excellency”, on the basis of that “space-slide”. He lasted all of three comical months!

    This same costly naivety (more aptly, happy opportunism?) would drive his PDP chairmanship odyssey, for the PDP house of fraud that Olusegun Obasanjo, former president of the Federal Republic, built was cracking and creaky all over. He lasted 18 turbulent months!

    Indeed, since President Obasanjo decided the late Solomon Lar, first PDP national chairman, was no longer a Solomon the party needed; and PDP elders back then endured Obasanjo’s muscling by presidential might, the PDP national chairmanship had become one long, slippery “banana peel”.

    “Banana peel” were the picturesque words of Chuba Wilberforce Okadigbo, late colourful politician and former president of the Senate, as he described the high attrition rate of Senate presidents of his era, in eternal feuding with an insufferable President Obasanjo, who made little secret of wanting to corral the National Assembly as executive sidekick and rubberstamp, despite the presidential system’s rigid separation of power.

    Indeed, since Obasanjo stonewalled the late Sunday Awoniyi, the Kogi giant, for Barnabas Gemade, the Benue not-so-known, every Tukur predecessor had come to grief: Audu Ogbe, Vincent Ogbulafor, Okwesilieze Nwodo and, of course, Tukur.

    The only exception, of course, was Ahmadu Ali, who proved a merry Obasanjo puppet just as Tukur proved a merry Jonathan one. He got away with his bully principal; but left his party dazed and stunned.

    Mr. Ogbe’s own call was holy rebellion against presidential complicity in the Chris Ngige Police-aided kidnapping in Anambra, at which the Obasanjo presidency sided with the constitutional bandits. He got tossed out all right, but with his honour intact as the party’s smothered conscience.

    In contrast, Tukur fell as wilful party collaborator in the Jonathan Presidency’s Police-aided serial subversion of the Rivers Government, issuing from partisan bile against Governor Chibuike Amaechi — unhorsed by PDP changing dynamics, which not even the manipulating hands of his principal and puppeteer could steady.

    The pair of Messrs Ogbulafor and Nwodo — with all due respect to them, for excellent citizens they are — are no more than blips on a party consumed by its own hubris. Mr. Ogbulafor once blurted his “largest party in Africa” would rule the roost for 60 years! It is ode to hubris that Mr. Ogbulafor himself lasted just over two years (March 2008-May 2010) as chairman!

    Indeed, the PDP conundrum would appear the real-politik equivalent of the Parmenides-Heraclitus philosophical see-saw. Like Heraclitus’s flux, the PDP chairmanship is a yo-yo. But again, not unlike Parmenides’ staid permanence, the constant change in PDP underscores how unchanged the party remains!

    The Obasanjo-Ali pair is therefore no different from the Jonathan-Tukur pair. But while second-term President Obasanjo had the gravitas to muscle Ali a safe landing, first-term President Jonathan lacks neither the tact nor the balls to hand Tukur one. Besides, Jonathan lacks the brawn to maintain, without blinking, the odious, in-your-face-impunity as party subversion tactics, of the Obasanjo era.

    Tukur, therefore, became an issue only because his principal was. He is gone now, but his principal is still on. So, those who suggest his exit will bring entente to the troubled party blow hot air!

    It is, therefore, in the 2015 presidential sweepstakes that the post-Tukur pitch battles would be fought. Jonathan still makes a fetish of hiding, behind a finger, his 2015 ambitions. But his intra-PDP foes have already cut the chase, and are dug in at the battle zone.

    Northern anti-Jonathan PDP elements have always regarded the president as some harbourer of “stolen good” — the presidency, on account of PDP’s aborted zoning, at the death of President Umaru Yar’Adua. And they chafe at the spectre of a Jonathan presidential encore in 2015.

    That was the genesis of the not so incredible claim that, to assuage the “North’s” hurt, Jonathan had pledged himself to a one-term presidency. So is it, the root of the pressure on the president to oust himself from 2015, the refusal of which birthed the defunct “New PDP”, and inspired the defection, into the All Progressives Congress (APC), of five of the G-7 PDP governors, aside from the Rivers impunity mess, in which Tukur also played the zestful party collaborator.

    In all of these Tukur, with his poise of a school headmaster taking no nonsense from uncouth urchins, did not help matters. Tukur was asked to jump and his uncritical question was “how high”? No surprise there, that he broke his back!

    He probably richly earned his demonization as some Judas to some “northern” cause. But much of that derring-do must have come at the promptings of a president, probably only too happy to unleash him on his northern brothers.

    But no tears for PDP. Its goose is cooked. The tears, rather, are for a fledgling democracy with a suspect party system.

    No matter how visible the ruling party’s crisis is, it is only but a symptom of the disease: the fraud of electing a president on a platform, only to declare him supreme to, and untouchable by, the party on which he rode to power!

    That is the fraudulent concept of “party leader”, that makes the PDP president some Leviathan over and above a party that made him a candidate.

    That was what Obasanjo brewed and bequeathed. That is what Jonathan has spectacularly mismanaged. And that is what even APC, on the rise now it may be, must watch, if it is not to blunder into the PDP pit.

    If this democracy must deliver development and prosperity — and not waste itself in the dissipative manoeuvres of intra-party war puppets and puppeteers — there is urgent need to fix the party system.

     

  • No consensus yet on Tukur’s successor

    No consensus yet on Tukur’s successor

    * PDP breaks into caucus meetings for consultations

    * Search team to recommend two candidates to NEC

    * Opposition mounts against First Lady’s favoured aspirant

    There are no signs yet from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) about a consensus replacement for Alhaji Bamanga Tukur who resigned as national chairman on Thursday.

    But it is expected that a successor will emerge tomorrow.

    This has sparked an intense horse-trading within the party’s hierarchy.

    The search team saddled with the responsibility of recommending two names to the PDP National Executive Committee which is reconvening tomorrow is said to be particularly under immense pressure to deliver.

    Party leaders broke into caucuses last night for consultations on the next chairman of the party.

    But of note was the opposition swelling up against SenatorIdris Umar, Minister of Transport and the supposed preference of the First Lady, Dame Patience Jonathan.

    Sources said that some political interests in his native Gombe State were not disposed to lending him their support.

    The fate of the 16 candidates jostling for the seat will be determined largely by President Goodluck Jonathan, the Chairman of the PDP Board of Trustees, Chief Tony Anenih, and the Presidential Strategy Team led by Governor Henry Seriake Dickson of Bayelsa State.

    The aspirants are ex-Governor Adamu Mu’azu; ex-Minister of Police Affairs, Adamu Maina Waziri; the Chairman of TETFUND, Musa Babayo; a former National Chairman of Grassroots Democratic Movement, Gambo Lawan; ex-Minister of Commerce, Idris Waziri; the incumbent Minister of Transport, Senator Idris Umar; Senator Abubakar Mahdi; Senator Abba Aji; a former National Chairman of NDP, Habu Fari; a former member of the House of Representatives, Mohammed Wakil. Others are a former Minister of Defence, Shettima Mustapha; a former Ambassador to the US, Dr. Hassan Adamu; a former National Publicity Secretary of PDP, Prof. Rufai Alkali; Ibrahim Bunu; a former Local Government Chairman in Yobe State, Hassan Kafayus; and a former Minister of State for Health, Dr. Aliyu Idi Hong.

    Some of the aspirants have already appeared before the Dickson Strategy Team for what a source described as “interactive purpose.”

    Sources spoke of intense lobbying of the team to allow the Borno-Yobe axis to produce the next PDP National Chairman.

    But it was learnt that some stakeholders from Bauchi and Gombe, including the governors of the two states, are not keen on the slot for their states.

    A source in the Strategy Team added that consultations were still in progress last night.

    The source said: “PDP leaders have decided to break into caucuses for consultations to make recommendations. I think Sunday will be a decisive day for the party. We may know the direction we are going on Tukur’s successor.

    “From the look of things, we may end up coming up with two nominees. At the end of the day, the President, the BOT Chairman, Chief Tony Anenih, the PDP governors and the Strategy Team will determine who should lead the party and table convincing arguments before the NEC.

    “The President has confided in party leaders that: ‘I will not allow anyone dictate to me or the party this time around, I will make sure we look for a credible hand. This is why the search is challenging.”

    Another said there has been much sympathy for the Borno-Yobe axis.

    The source said that attention has shifted to aspirants from Borno and Yobe states- Adamu Maina Waziri, Shettima Mustapha, Abba Aji, Gambo Lawan and Mohammed Wakil, Ibrahim Bunu, and Hassan Kafayus.

    But of these aspirants, only four are said to stand any good chance of getting the slot.

    Three of them- Adamu Maina Waziri, Shettima Mustapha and Abba Aji have already appeared before the Strategy Team.

    The fourth aspirant, Gambo Lawan is yet to interact with the Team.

    The source said: “But there are issues with some of these aspirants before the team. While some are claiming that Shettima Mustapha is old, a few others have revisited the role of Abba Aji on the ill-health of the late President Umaru Yar’Adua in not transmitting a letter to the National Assembly which led to the succession crisis.

    “As for Adamu Maina Waziri, they said he was the only PDP stalwart from Borno-Yobe axis whose houses in Potiskum and Kaduna were attacked and vandalized in 2011 during the post-election violence.

    “But some leaders are uncomfortable with Waziri being close to ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo. Waziri’s loyalists however said by being close to Obasanjo, he may be a bridge-builder and be in a better position to reconcile various tendencies in the party.”

    Gambo Lawan is rated as a good party administrator but some forces recall the role he played as chairman of one of the five parties in the Abacha years

    Although Mohammed Wakil is being backed by some members of the Strategy Team, it was discovered on Friday that he is under 50 years.

    Wakil, whose name is said to be on the ministerial nominees list could make Jonathan’s new cabinet.

    Stakeholders from Adamawa State have fears that with the exit of Tukur, they might not have a say in the NWC again.

     

  • Tukur’s undignified exit

    Tukur’s undignified exit

    AFTER many months of dithering and pussyfooting, both President Jonathan and Bamanga Tukur have finally consented to the resignation of the latter as chairman of the ruling PDP. Sadly for the two gentlemen, neither of them benefits from a transaction that deprives both of them any honour. The manner of Alhaji Tukur’s resignation and its delay show the banality of his intransigence and the ignoble and mindless opportunism of President Jonathan’s politics.

    If he had left when the opposition against him rose to fever pitch, and if the president had not erroneously felt his re-election fortunes depended on the political survival of the party chairman, they would have prevented the mass gubernatorial and legislative defections the party witnessed recently. Perhaps, too, they could have avoided the intense acrimony the party is currently experiencing, acrimony that now seems quite impossible to mollify.

    It is a striking paradox that the intraparty bitterness and confusion the president struggled to avoid by lending his unthinking support to Alhaji Tukur have instead been exacerbated exactly by that support. Alhaji Tukur has belatedly resigned. It will be of no effect, for it is too little, too late. If anything, it will leave the president even more vulnerable in his party. By the time Alhaji Tukur resigned, the problem in the party had festered to the point that whether he resigned or stood pat, both options were sure to have the same deleterious effect.

  • Tukur is not the endgame

    A man afflicted with leprosy is often uncomfortable when it comes to the counting of fingers. While we are still on the slow-motion unravelling of the biggest party in Africa, it is meet to report on the gangland political elimination of its former party chairman, Bamanga Tukur. It has been a week of high octane drama in the PDP (Hereafter referred to as the People Decapitation Party) It was an elaborate game of bluff and counter bluff in which rumours and planted stories alternated with resignations and denials of resignation.

    Unlike its more famous French precursor, the PDP guillotine is not a mercy killer at all. It is a crude and blunt instrument of political decapitation, the ultimate tribute to African political savagery. It will be recalled that Idi Amin Dada of Uganda once stocked the freshly decapitated scalps of his political opponents in a deep freezer in his sitting room. Every morning, the deranged Nubian cyclops would walk up to the freezer to hurl insults at the departed. For him, death was not enough. There ought to be something more terminal.

    It is so sad to watch an accomplished administrator and distinguished industrial magnate like Bamanga Tukur reduced to a whimpering nonentity while begging for a job that had long disappeared. As the old octogenarian minus one year ran from pillar to post begging for a stay of execution, the hounds appeared to have sniffed blood. It was all reminiscent of watching morbid hyenas carving up their victim alive.

    They were not even going to allow the old man a decent lying in state. For sheer drama, the end would have made Al Capone and the old Chicago Mafiosi look like callow apprentices. A poker-faced Jonathan pulled out Tukur’s resignation letter indicating that the Fulani aristocrat has consented to execution. From the way the old man winced and grimaced, his face contorted in pains like a badly mauled boxer, it was all clear that we were witnessing the equivalent of a low tech political lynching. When the selfsame Jonathan announced that he was giving Tukur a higher and bigger assignment, one could almost hear the old man cursing under his breath in Fulfude.

    It would appear that in the twilight of an illustrious public career, the Fulani Brahmin made a grave political miscalculation. No matter his stout defence of Jonathan and his presidency, the man from Otueke would sacrifice just about anybody when his all-consuming presidential ambition is threatened. At almost eighty, age is no longer on Bamanga Tukur’s side. Having lost face with the larger party for what is considered his autocratic testiness, and having become a pariah among the northern power cohorts for his support for the unsupportable, a comeback into political reckoning is hard to envisage. So long then, Papa Bamanga.

    But let it be noted that Bamanga Tukur is not the endgame. There will be more games before the end. And there will be more chilling political executions of big games. The head hunter is surely about and abroad. The guillotine is not a grass cutter.

  • Bamanga taku

    Bamanga taku

    The PDP chair might have been kicked out; his ‘resignation’ now won’t amount to much

    Alhaji Bamanga Tukur, the erstwhile Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) took the rug off my feet when, after behaving like a drowning man that would not hesitate to cling, even to a serpent for help, for months, finally bowed to pressures to resign on January 15. Alhaji Tukur had been in search of a saviour for months. But genuine saviours don’t come cheap. And when they do, they come to the rescue of people in genuine need of help. At some point, the PDP chair leaned on President Goodluck Jonathan; at some other time, he found succour on the shoulders of his wife, Patience Jonathan. That he was still forced out of office showed that he was all the while building (his salvation) on shifting sand. Those he looked forward to for help might themselves be in need of help.

    I am pained though that Alhaji Tukur beat me to it. I had already concluded, as early as the beginning of last week, to write on him because I was baffled that in spite of the fact that the PDP had been crumbling on his head, he never deemed it fit to resign, at least as honourable men would have done. The headline that I initially chose: Tukur taku! (Tukur adamant!) was provided by a colleague. That is why, despite the fact that Alhaji Tukur has resigned, I still found the headline (which I later modified to ‘Bamanga taku’) irresistible and appropriate, if only to stress the fact that his resignation came far too late.

    People should be able to read the handwriting on the wall. Alhaji Tukur was humiliated out of office; he only did not wait for the formalisation of the humiliation process. So, what has all his stone-walling and filibustering amounted to, after all? At his age, Alhaji Tukur ought to know when it is time to go; he ought to have known that it is best to leave when the ovation is loudest. It was because he failed to know this that he stayed longer than necessary in the toilet, and eventually ended up being assailed by all manner of maggots. The shame and disgrace that he was running away from in the twilight of his life and political career, which made him to stay put as party chair, even when it was obvious that he was no longer wanted, eventually became his lot just because he refused to face realities.

    Rumours had started making the rounds the day before he finally threw in the towel that he had resigned, but this was refuted with everything within Tukur’s arsenal. He said the purported resignation was a ruse and that it was the handiwork of his political detractors. I don’t know why people like deceiving themselves like this. A woman who has only one child was told that her child was misbehaving somewhere, and she asked: which of them? Was it not clear, even to the blind, that Alhaji Tukur had lost the battle to retain his job a long time ago? He was probably the only one that did not see that his end as PDP chair was nigh. The crisis in Rivers State is enough to finish him as party chairman.

    And, at a time he should be asking Allah for forgiveness of sins, he, in desperation to keep his job, even lied in faraway London when he told a gathering that for every five members who left the PDP, the party records about 500 new entrants. “The PDP remains a party with the largest spread and tested strength to win elections any day any time …” Tukur told the visiting Nigerian professionals. He added: “The good thing is that if five people move out of PDP into the other party, even by a dint of propaganda, the party takes in more than 500 at a time as replacement. The electorate in Nigeria trusts the PDP more than many people are aware,” a boastful Tukur further stated. He was trying to impress his audience that the defection of five of the party’s governors to the All Progressives Congress (APC) was inconsequential. He had forgotten that in this era of internet, such lies cannot endure. The greatest fool knows this is a lie. But that is how they have been running the country. In the PDP, lying is politics.

    It is shocking, however, that, at 78, Alhaji Tukur made himself available to be used as a virtual puppet. What did he want again? It is not that he is poor. Anyway, since he was not man enough to do what he should have done when it was most honourable, he should at least return home to do what he originally should be doing now that it is all over: tend to his grandchildren and great grandchildren (if any).

    Let no one shed tears for him. He was not born a party chair; he was not the first PDP chair. Has he forgotten that that is the way things are in the ruling party? Has he forgotten how former President Olusegun Obasanjo visited the then chairman of the PDP, Chief Audu Ogbeh, ate pounded yam with him at his family house and, a few hours later, backed Ogbeh’s removal from office? Has Alhaji Tukur forgotten that the PDP chair seat is a musical chair? He ought to have been more circumspect knowing that people who were by far better party chairmen than him had gone. If people who were able to keep the party together and elevate the status of party chair could lose their job so ignominiously, what gave Alhaji Tukur the confidence that he would be able to keep his, even as the party was crumbling under his watch?

    It is sad that a septuagenarian who should be thinking more about celestial matters is still hankering after terrestrial things. But just a rhetorical question: Will Alhaji Tukur, in all conscience, be proud to hand this kind of job over to his children?

    With speculation that the President’s wife was already scheming to install his successor, after delicately backing him through his long, troubled moments, Nigerians should pray that the First Lady should continue to bring her influence to bear in the PDP because we need more of such negative influence from her to completely tear the party apart.

    But no one should harbour the illusion that Alhaji Tukur is alone in this stay-put syndrome. He is only emblematic of the disease afflicting them in the PDP, nay, Africa generally. And that is one of the dangers of keeping the party in power for longer than necessary; its men will never go without a fight. A friend of mine has always warned that we need to be wary of people who eat stockfish without picking their teeth because such people will never pay their debt. I do not know how Alhaji Tukur’s resignation at this point in time will amount to much in the course of events. As a commentator said online, his resignation is ‘probably too little and too late!’ Not only that, Alhaji Tukur is only but a puppet, he is not the issue in the PDP. The real issue is the puppeteer himself. Is he seeking reelection in 2015, or is he not? This is the bone of contention in the ruling party. And it will remain so until the ruling party wobbles and fumbles out of the 2015 election.

  • Save me from disgrace, Tukur begs Jonathan

    Save me from disgrace, Tukur begs Jonathan

    •President, others meet at Villa

    Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) National Chairman Bamanga Tukur stepped up yesterday his battle to keep his job.

    He reportedly rushed down to the Presidential Villa to beg President Goodluck Jonathan to save him from being disgraced out of office.

    He assured the President repeatedly that he would reconcile with the aggrieved members of the National Working Committee (NWC) and other leaders of the party, it was learnt.

    The President reportedly met with Board of Trustees Chairman Chief Tony Anenih and other leaders on Tukur’s offer.

    There were strong indications that the President and members of the National Caucus might give Tukur a second chance.

    Investigation by our correspondent revealed that upon reaching the Presidential Villa, a distraught Tukur attempted to kneel down for the President, but it was resisted by Jonathan.

    The President said he would not allow Tukur to kneel down for him because he has respect for old age.

    It was learnt that Tukur then opened up on why he should not be forced out of office.

    A source from the Northeast said: “Tukur repeatedly said, ‘Mr. President, I beg you in the name of God, do not disgrace me out of office.’

    “He repeated how loyal he had been to the President and why his reform programmes was misunderstood by governors and members of the National Working Committee (NWC).

    “Tukur assured the President that he would make peace with all aggrieved governors, NWC members and leaders of the party.”

    Responding to a question, the source said Tukur asked the President to allow the party to give him “some time” to reunite everyone in the party.

    The source added: “At a point, Tukur held on to the President to ‘please help me beg all these people who are against me, I do not want to be disgraced. I think there is an age gap; these people do not understand me.’ The development made the President emotional.”

    The President, it was learnt, invited some leaders of the party to hear Tukur’s penitence.

    Jonathan was said to have told Tukur: “I have no problem with you as long as you keep the party united and very strong. I will discuss with others. Go and reconcile with governors and NWC members. Make sure you truly work for peace in the party.”

    The President later met with the Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the PDP, Chief Tony Anenih, a former President of the Senate, Chief Ken Nnamani, a former Deputy National Chairman of the party, Chief Olabode George, a former Minister of Information, Prof. Jerry Gana, and a former National Chairman of the party, Alhaji Mohammed Haliru Bello, among others.

    It was gathered that all the leaders supported giving a ‘second chance’ to Tukur to restore peace to the party.

    The National Caucus of the party was in session last night to consider the President’s opinion on Tukur.

    As at the time of filing this report, Tukur was said to be explaining to the National Caucus his side of the crisis and why he should not vacate the office into which he was validly elected.

    Another source said: “Tukur is not giving up at all; he is insisting that if he has to go, it must be constitutionally done. He wants the National Convention to determine his fate.

    “Tukur has always been asking leaders of the party to state the basis for his resignation. As a matter of fact, Tukur raised a poser for one of the PDP leaders: ‘Have I stolen any money? What did I do wrong? Why should I be removed?’ The PDP National Chairman cannot understand why everybody is against him.

    “It was in the context of the unclear nature of allegations against him that Tukur spoke with reporters on the telephone.”

    But a member of the NWC said: “We raised some questions last Thursday which Tukur could not answer. Let him revisit these posers and answer them.

    “Our position is that Tukur must step aside or else PDP should take the risk and forget winning the 2015 poll.”

    The allegations are:

    •holding party /NWC meetings at Tukur’s residence instead of PDP Secretariat;

    •running a parallel NWC, leaving Tukur to take decisions on critical party matters with only his aides;

    •mass defection from PDP due to lack of confidence in Tukur;

    •governors, National Assembly members, BOT, NEC unhappy with Tukur;

    •no concrete achievements since Tukur took over in the last two years. He could not even complete the ongoing National Secretariat of the party;

    •globetrotting without any result to enhance the electoral fortunes of the party; and

    •lack of access to Tukur, sometimes for two weeks.

    Meanwhile, a pressure group in the party, the PDP Patriots, insisted yesterday that NEC could remove Tukur.

    The group also said Tukur had forgotten that he is answerable to the PDP National Executive Committee, which is constitutionally empowered to act on behalf of the National Convention, which produced him.

    In a pre-NEC meeting document circulated in Abuja, the group asked PDP NEC to examine dispassionately the implications of the continued retention of Prof. Olawale Oladipo in office as the party’s National Secretary vis-a-vis the ruling of the Court of Appeal

    The document reads in part: “We also commend the NWC members for coming out of their shells after being timid for a long time to take a stand in the current crises plaguing the PDP. If they did not, they probably could have faced charges of complicity, since the PDP constitution gives two-thirds of NWC members (eight out of 12) the right to take decisions, should the national chairman fail to act, and such decisions would be binding.

    “They could go a step further by reversing all the decisions forced down their throats by the national chairman and report same to NEC. All such unilateral decisions made by Tukur, including serial violation of PDP constitution, should be properly compiled by the ‘’G-9’’ NWC members headed by the Deputy National Chairman, Prince Uche Secondus and brought before the NEC meeting for endorsement of reversal, so that PDP could be saved from the agony of shooting itself on the foot, as these could be counted against all NWC members at the time of reckoning.’’

    “If his exit is largely seen as the solution to the myriad of problems he created for the PDP, Bamanga Tukur should gladly accept to step aside in the overall interest of the party, instead of threatening President Goodluck Jonathan, who made him the national chairman and other organs of the PDP with contempt of court, as if he is the only individual who could ensure that Jonathan is returned to office in 2015. It leaves a sour taste in the mouth.

    “It is interesting that Tukur has forgotten that he is answerable to the PDP National Executive Committee, which is constitutionally empowered to act on behalf of the National Convention of the party which produced him.

    “Tukur, as an individual, does not constitute the National Working Committee, or the National Executive Committee. Any suit filed on behalf of the PDP by the NWC can also be withdrawn by two-thirds majority of the NWC of the PDP, which also has the right to discontinue any suit filed before any court of law by the party.

    “Afterall, Tukur in the same manner unilaterally directed that the appeal filed by the PDP for stay of execution of the judgement of the Federal High Court that removed Prince Olagunsoye Oyinlola and national officers of the party be withdrawn by Chief Joe Gadzama, SAN, at both the Federal High Court, Abuja, and the Court of Appeal, Lagos Judicial Division, to prevent the three South-west zonal officers from returning to office. “Unfortunately, Tukur disrespected the pronouncement of the Court of Appeal, and chose to respect the ruling of a Federal High Court, an action which forms part of several illegal decisions unilaterally taken by Tukur, which have opened the PDP to ridicule. Never again must stakeholders allow PDP to be managed by a dictator who cannot be trusted to function as a team player.

    “We wish all our leaders and stakeholders well and pray that the Creator may give them the wisdom to put things right without fail, at their meetings this week.”

    The group urged NEC to also look at the way the National Secretary of the party emerged.

    It added: “Accordingly, the position paper states that Oladipo’s continued occupation of the position of PDP national secretary may portend grave danger for the party, as decisions reached at any PDP forum, conveying the signature or participation of Oladipo as national secretary, may be successfully challenged in court in future; and such decisions may be invalidated on account of the illegality surrounding Oladipo’s appointment and tenure as national secretary of the PDP.

    “Whoever occupies the position of national secretary of a political party is the custodian of the seal of the organisation; and is like the conscience of the party, who must be free from any form of entanglements that could cause legal or moral problems for the PDP.”

  • I have not resigned, says Tukur

    I have not resigned, says Tukur

    National Chairman of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Alhaji Bamanga Tukur, has denied reports of his purported resignation as the crisis in the ruling party escalates.

    In a statement yesterday, Tukur expressed shock on the report, which he said was being sponsored by those he described as hawks within and outside the party desperate to pull down the party.

    He said he found it incomprehensible that certain members of the party could go to the extent of concocting lies against his person to actualise their ambitions ahead of the 2015 polls.

    The party chair said he had done everything practicable to put the PDP on track, as well as to keep the agenda of President Goodluck Jonathan to transform Nigeria away from distraction, the reason he said he was undergoing tribulations.

    Tukur maintained that he never planned to resign nor told anyone about his resolve to do so.

    According to him, with his position as national chairman of the ruling PDP, he would never subject his resignation to newspapers’ speculation.

    Tukur, who received a group of party leaders at his Abuja residence yesterday, said he was shocked to be told that some on-line media were making speculations about his resignation.

    Said he: “You all met me here talking to you as the PDP Chairman, yet, some enemies of the party went to the media to say I had resigned. It is unbelievable that some party members could be mean, vile, treacherous and vindictive while playing such stunt.

    “This is not the first time they would do this. They had sponsored media reports severally to say I had resigned. Yet, the Almighty God has continued to shame them because they were not the ones who kept me on this seat.

    “They went further to sponsor media reports that I was to confront our President over an issue they could not expatiate on. The agents of darkness have taken over the place. Nigerians and members of our party should beware.

    “I am in good terms with Mr President, the leader of our party. We met often and take strategic decisions together. No one, not even the devil, can make me be in needless confrontation with the President. We are one in the spirit and the enemies would be shocked to see PDP back on stream.”

    Tukur expressed dismay over another report that he had dared President

    Jonathan over the plot to remove him from office.

    He said there was no reason for such a confrontation because the President was never part of the plot to oust him, adding that “besides, the President has been a jolly good fellow to me; a brother, a leader of the party and my greatest confidant”.

    The party chair vowed to keep his head above the raging tide, stressing that those behind the plot to oust him would sooner or later discover that they were pursuing a wrong cause.

    Tukur warned his detractors against the law of retributive justice, saying that God has continued to vindicate him despite the conspiracy against him.

    “If I did nothing to wrong a soul, if I try my best all the time to make our party become stronger and great; and when some people plot to fight me on my stand point to be just, I say today that the Almighty Allah will vindicate me,” he said.

    The leadership of the PDP has told a lawyer, Mr. Ajibola Oluyede, acting on behalf of the embattled party chairman Bamanga Tukur, to steer clear of the party’s affairs.

    A statement yesterday by PDP National Legal Adviser Victor Kwom, said Oluyede is not in any position to speak on the legal implications of the move by stakeholders to remove Tukur from office.

    Oluyede had, in a newspaper advertorial, adduced reasons why Tukur cannot be removed from office in such a way as to truncate his four-year tenure. The lawyer added that Tukur can only be removed by a properly conducted national convention of the party.

    The statement said: “Our attention has been drawn to a media advertorial in which one Mr. Ajibola Oluyede adduced certain opinions claiming such to be the position of the PDP constitution on some recent developments in our party.

    “For the avoidance of doubt, the National Working Committee of the PDP wishes to state that Mr. Ajibola Oluyede has no mandate or authority to issue the said advertorial.

    “That the position adduced in the advertorial does not in anyway represent or correspond with the position of the Constitution of the PDP.

    “That the PDP has a National Legal Adviser whose duties under the party’s constitution include advising the party on all legal matters, conducting all litigation; prosecuting and defending actions on behalf of the party, including its organs and officials in so far as the subject of the litigation affects the interest of the party; and interpreting the laws, regulations and constitution of the party in the event of any ambiguities.

    “We therefore warn all such characters to desist from making public statements and sponsoring publications in any manner whatsoever that distort the provisions of our constitution and the position of our party on any issue”.